


Snowy Encounters

by orochiis



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Anime), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Just Straight Up Fluff, Mistletoe, Reuniting, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28297842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orochiis/pseuds/orochiis
Summary: After a chance encounter with Paul on a walk in Amity Square, Dawn keeps bumping into him, and the two find that Hearthome City is pushing them together.Written for PokéAni Secret Santa 202 as a gift fot bonbunnies on twitter!
Relationships: Hikari | Dawn/Shinji | Paul
Comments: 3
Kudos: 32





	Snowy Encounters

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written this ship in so long but I am SO glad I did I enjoy them a lot :)

Hearthome City is nice in the winter. Snow dusts the streets, gathering just enough for children to make a half-hearted attempt at a snowman. Really, they head into Amity Square if they really want to have fun – a bigger area means room for snowball fights, the most exciting part of winter for many.

It’s a more temperate Snowpoint City, Dawn muses, looking out of her apartment window at the city below her. Seeing the local children and Pokémon dashing about in the streets makes her smile. By her side, Piplup chirps in excitement. The Penguin Pokémon has always liked the snow, feeling like he belongs there somehow.

Dawn smiles, and pulls on her coat, Piplup dancing around her feet. They’ve been together long enough that her partner Pokémon doesn’t need her to explain where they’re going anymore. All either of them need is a smile or a tilt of the head and then the two of them are off on another adventure.

It’s not really that much of an adventure today, heading towards Amity Square for a walk. They go here so often, often with Pachirisu and Buneary in tow. Dawn’s other Pokémon are often less keen for the walks, and so they stay in the warmth of her apartment.

Amity Square is full of people, buzzing about with their own Pokémon. Happiny make snowmen with their trainers and Psyduck fall into snow piles while younger trainers look on and laugh. This is one of Dawn’s favourite places in the world, and one she would spend most of her time if it was feasible.

She hasn’t been living in Hearthome City for that long – she’s been travelling around the world, entering contests as she goes. Eventually she returned home to Twinleaf Town, and used her childhood bedroom as a base to train for her return to the spotlight of Sinnoh Super Contests. It was a completely different experience from the first time – she won more regularly, didn’t have to worry as much about where she would be staying or what she would be eating.

Flying out to individual towns was an experience in and of itself too. It meant a good night’s sleep in her own bed most of the time, travelling out to each town as and when suited. Dawn found new rivals, too – people that spurred her on to do better with every contest, even if some of them were a lot younger than she was. And at the end of it all, she’d won the Ribbon Cup, and had it proudly displayed in her new apartment.

Now she’s working for the Sinnoh branch of the Pokémon Activities Committee, meaning a long time coming move to Hearthome City so she can go into the office. Johanna was over the moon when she was offered the job – keeping the tradition of Contest glory alive and well in the family.

But the Contest season is on its winter break, and so she has time to breathe. And that means time to shop, and relax, and play with her Pokémon. Despite not being very strong, Piplup pulls her along by the top of her boots, heading towards the back of the square. When he reaches his destination, the Penguin Pokémon flops down into the snow, making some attempt at a snow angel.

Dawn takes photos of him, watching as he dances around, enjoying himself outside. He likes having his picture taken too, and looks over her shoulder as she adds stickers and filters to the photo before posting it online, chirping in approval.

It gets cold quickly, though, and soon they have to head back. Piplup complains loudly, but it’s getting dark too, and eventually he drags himself upright and allows Dawn to scoop him up. The park is mostly emptied – two trainers with Shroomishes pass them on the way out, and a teenage girl with a Monferno seem to be out on what looks like a daily run.

Near the entrance, blocking their way home, sits a huge Torterra, settled into the snow with a smug look on its face. The square’s attendant laughs at the trainer, who seems embarrassed that the Pokémon didn’t even make it properly into the square before relaxing. She asks if he can return the Pokémon to the ball and move it elsewhere, otherwise no one else will be able to get in or out. The trainer doesn’t seem too happy about it, but acquiesces to her request.

As Dawn gets closer, she sees that the trainer is familiar – blue coat, Torterra, grumpy expression, purple hair pulled back into a short ponytail. Dawn stops in her tracks – it’s been nearly ten years since she’s seen Paul, and she’s not sure if she wants to see him now. Surely he’s grown up since then? But judging by the scowl still etched on his features… maybe not.

She decides just to ignore him – he’s not an old friend or anything, just someone they happened to bump into a lot. She’s not even sure that Ash would’ve called him his friend, though he probably would try to. She doubts he even remembers her – he seemed to have a hard time doing that on the first handful of occasions they met.

He releases his Torterra a little further into the park, the Continent Pokémon settling itself into the snow once again. Dawn finds this action a little strange – aren’t grass type Pokémon weak to ice? Nevertheless, she passes them by, holding Piplup a little tighter and trying not to turn her head in their direction.

“Oh,” she distinctly hears Paul say, “it’s you.”  
  
“Me?” She asks, stopping in her tracks, slowly turning to look at him. His scowl is gone, mostly, replaced with some sort of odd look of curiosity.

“Who else is around?”  
  
“Well, I guess.”

“Dawn, right?”  
  
“Yeah. It’s been a while,” she says with a smile. He doesn’t return it.

“You’re top coordinator now.”

“That I am. I work for the Pokémon Activities Committee now.”

“Oh, right. You live here?” Paul asks, raising an eyebrow.  
  
“Yep. You?”

“Yeah. Needed to leave home eventually.”  
  
“I get it.” The silence between them seems to stretch as far as Snowpoint City, not just the few feet of piled up snow between them. “Um… did you… did you ever beat the Battle Pyramid?”  
  
“Yeah,” Paul says with a sigh, his breath condensing in the air. “Felt good.”  
  
“And what are you doing now, then?”  
  
“Training, a lot. I’m still eligible for League sponsorship until the end of the season, so this is my last chance to become Champion.”

“Oh, nice. I hope that goes well for you, then!”

“Um, thanks.”

“Hey, maybe if we’re both living here, I’ll see you around sometime?” Dawn asks. She doesn’t know why – in the last nine years Paul has never once entered her head, and now she’s feeling almost hopeful at the thought of seeing him again. Maybe she’s lonelier than she thinks.

“Yeah, maybe,” Paul says with a snort. Clearly he doesn’t believe her – Hearthome is a big city, and the chances of them actually running into each other frequently are slim. She rolls her eyes.

“Right, okay, I almost forgot that you _hate_ people. I was just trying to be nice, thinking that it had been ten years since we had bumped into each other and maybe you were less of an asshole!”

Dawn stomps away, the snow underfoot giving a satisfying crunch as she makes a dramatic exit. She was right along – people like Paul don’t change, not really.

* * *

As it turns out, once she knows he lives in Hearthome City, Dawn spots Paul frequently in the next few weeks. Christmas is rapidly approaching, and she’s spending more and more time out of her apartment. She has shopping to do, but Hearthome City seems to be plagued with grumpy purple haired men at every turn.

He’s checking out in the supermarket at the till opposite her. He raises an eyebrow and turns away. She goes for a walk along Route 209 and there he is, training with Torterra and Electivire and a Grimmsnarl that he must’ve caught in Galar – when he was there Dawn has no idea, but she’s not in much of a rush to find out.

They see each other in the cinema on a Thursday night when the tickets are cheap, sitting at other ends of the same row. Dawn waves awkwardly, he holds a hand up in response. Better than nothing, she thinks. They bump into each other, literally, in the homewares store when Dawn is looking for a present for her mother (she settles on a mug tree). She nearly drops the thing in her surprise, and Paul manages to catch it before the ceramic smashes on the floor.

If she didn’t know any better, she would say that Paul was following her. But Paul doesn’t like her, and everything she’s doing has been completely normal. It’s a strange set of coincidences, but it’s almost nice to see someone so regularly. She really is an idiot, she thinks, not realising that she had barely spoken to any of her friends since moving here.

Zoey lives in Snowpoint City, and while they do talk on the phone often enough, it’s not the same as actually seeing each other in person. Kenny moved away a few years ago to train in Kalos, and Barry has taken over at the Battle Tower. Of course Ash and Brock are busy, and she hasn’t heard from may or Iris or Cilan in years. So it seems like the universe is pushing her and Paul together, and she doesn’t know how she’s supposed to feel about that.

They meet again in Hearthome’s cosiest coffee shop on a particularly snowy evening. They’re the only two there, and Dawn would laugh if it weren’t for Paul’s scowl. But he’s not scowling at her, he’s scowling at the table. Once she’s ordered her coffee, she slides the chair out from opposite him and takes a seat, startling him out of his stupor.

“Are you following me?” He asks, completely serious.

“No! I wondered if you were following _me_.”  
  
“Why would I do that?”

“That’s what I thought, so I realised you weren’t. Is something wrong? You look grumpier than usual.”

“It’s been too cold to train properly recently,” he grumbles. “Torterra likes snow, but the ground is frozen and it’s struggling to break it. Electivire just keeps being grumpy, and while Froslass is okay, she’s making it worse for everyone else. I don’t know how I’m supposed to train when they’re all being so awkward.”  
  
“You could just… take a break?” Dawn suggests. Paul’s gaze snaps to hers, looking confused.

“What do you mean?”  
  
“You know… stop training. For a while. Until the weather turns a little. They said on the news this was supposed to be the coldest week of the year! It shouldn’t be as bad next week.”

“Just stop training? What am I supposed to do with my time instead, then?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Dawn sighs. “Go to the cinema again, go see your family, go to the gym yourself?”  
  
“I guess that makes sense,” Paul agrees. “I have to go up to Veilstone next week anyway to see Reggie. And because it’s even further north, it’ll be colder there too…”  
  
“All of Sinnoh is cold, Paul,” Dawn points out.

“I know that.”

“Maybe if you go up to near Snowpoint City, you could do actual snow training? You know, intensive training to make your Pokémon stronger! It’s a permanent blizzard up there.”  
  
“I’ve been before,” Paul reminds her. “But it might not be a bad idea. How have you been training recently? Maybe I can steal your plans.”  
  
“I haven’t really been training,” Dawn admits. “I don’t have any plans to do more contests, so it’s not as important. It does leave me wondering what to do with my Pokémon though – I can take Piplup, Pachirisu and Buneary on walks to get exercise, and I let them out in the apartment, but I can’t really do that with Mamoswine,” she laughs.

“We should have a battle sometime,” Paul suggests. Dawn laughs again, but Paul is serious, his face unmoving as he stares her down.

“Battle against me? No way.”  
  
“I mean it. You’re at the top of your field, right? Even though I don’t… get Contests, you must be good at battling. Your style of battling has to be different than mine, and I could learn something from you.”

“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. I’m sure my Pokémon would love to get the exercise!”  
  
“It’ll be more than exercise. I won’t go easy on you.”  
  
“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Dawn replies, stubbornly lifting her chin.

“Good. I’ll see you tomorrow morning on Route 209, then.”

* * *

Dawn loses the battle. It doesn’t come as a surprise – Paul has always been talented, a better trainer than most people she knows. He probably could’ve won the Sinnoh League back then too, if she’s being honest. Ash is great, and yes he was the Champion in other regions, but there’s something oppressive about Paul’s battling style that if they were to have a rematch, Dawn isn’t sure that Ash would win.

They walk back to Hearthome City together, and Paul makes comments on her style. It was an easy win for him, mostly because she is so out of practice (a whole six months!). But he clearly learned something from it, so Dawn considers it time well spent. It’s strange to hear a compliment fall from his lips, and Dawn finds her face flushing, citing the cold chill of the wind when Paul asks her about it.

It’s still snowing when they make it back to that coffee shop in the back streets, just a few streets away from her apartment block. Both of them stop simultaneously, an unspoken question on both of their lips. Dawn opens her mouth, deciding to be the one to be brave, but Paul gets there first with an entirely different.

“You have some snow…” he mumbles, brushing a clump of gathered snowflakes out of her hair and tucking the strand behind her ear.

“Thanks,” she whispers, finding herself unable to meet his gaze. And now she feels silly, because she was complaining to herself about how hateful he was not even a month ago and now she’s swooning because he picked snow out of her hair.

“Do you need to rush home? I wouldn’t mind… talking about that spinning thing your Buneary did.” Now it’s his turn not to be able to look at her, head turned away, face half buried in his scarf.  
  
“Coffee?” she suggests, nodding her head towards the door. As way of response, Paul opens the door, and lets Dawn pass him inside.

They order coffees – Paul insists on paying for hers even though she says that she has a full-time well-paying job and he’s still on Pokémon Trainer salary. But he shoves the paper cup towards her anyway, and her hands brush against his, cold and rough, as she accepts.

They sit at the same table as before, this time with noon fast approaching rather than midnight. The café is busier, only slightly, and Dawn tells him about how she incorporated dance moves into her style of battling. Paul takes his phone out, and types furiously. Dawn is surprised when he sets his phone down and smiles, properly smiles, something she’s not sure she’s ever seen on the man before.

“Thanks,” he says honestly, another thing Dawn supposes is new for him. “With this sort of thing, maybe I stand a chance at the Sinnoh League.”  
  
“You really think putting Contest moves in a regular battle will help? You know Coordinators have entered Leagues before, right?”  
  
“I know that,” Paul huffs. “It’s just that I’ve trained for so many years, and have had so many people tell me I’m the best trainer my age they’ve ever seen. And yet I can’t seem to win a single League. But maybe with some flashy moves, the Sinnoh league will be in my grasp at last.”  
  
“I’ll be rooting for you,” Dawn says with a grin, knowing that he needs all the encouragement he can get. He seems really frustrated about this – maybe _that’s_ what’s changed in him over the years – he’s come to realise his own shortcomings. “But if you do win using my moves, you need to give me a shout out in your victory speech.”  
  
“Deal,” he says with something approaching a laugh.

Dawn sighs and takes a sip from her coffee. It’s become strangely nice to spend time with Paul, something that ten-year-old her would never have dreamed of uttering. But she does think that now – maybe that’s how _she’s_ changed over the years.

He doesn’t offer to walk her home – not explicitly at least. But he gets up only when her coffee is finished, waits for her to put her coat back on, and holds the door open for her once again. She pauses in the doorway, looking up at the frame. Hanging from the wood is a little green sprig of mistletoe that she can’t help but point out to him.

“Don’t tell me you believe in that sort of thing?” He scoffs, but he’s retracted back into his scarf once again.

“I’m not going to make you kiss me,” Dawn says, rolling her eyes. “But it _is_ traditional, so…”  
  
Before she has time to finish her argument, his lips meet hers, briefly, so fast that Dawn isn’t sure that it actually happened. But judging by how red Paul’s face is, it _did_ happen, and her face splits into a grin, because just _wait_ until Zoey hears about this, she’ll be in stitches.

“Let’s not ever speak of this again,” he says firmly, turning away. She has to jog for a few steps to catch up with him, but she falls neatly into place beside him, and catches the hint of a smile hidden in his scarf.


End file.
